About Switzerland

• Switzerland has four national languages including French, German, Italian and Rhaeto-Romantsch. The latter has Latin roots.
• The Swiss currency is not the euro, but the Swiss franc (CHF). As at October 2013, one Swiss franc is worth around EUR 0.81/USD 1.10/GBP 0.68.
• Switzerland has one of the lowest crime rates of all industrialized countries, despite having liberal gun laws (2.3–4.5 million guns in a population of 8 million).
• There’s a political party in Switzerland that actually works to decrease the number of PowerPoints used in professional presentations! The Anti-PowerPoint Party or APPP is a Swiss political party founded in 2011. They’re dedicated to decreasing the professional use of Microsoft PowerPoint and other presentation software.

General Information on Switzerland

• Official Name: Swiss Confederation
• Capital: Bern (Current local time)
• Government Type: Federal Republic
• Population: 7.55 million
• Area: 15,941 sq. mi.; about the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined.
• Languages: German (official) 63.7%, French (official) 20.4%, Italian (official) 6.5%, Serbo-Croatian 1.5%, Albanian 1.3%, Portuguese 1.2%, Spanish 1.1%, English 1%, Romansch (official) 0.5%
• Literacy: Total population: [99%]; Male: [99%]; Female: [99%]
• Year of Independence: 1291
• Web site: Admin.ch